


Deadman Walking

by orphan_account



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-09
Updated: 2016-11-09
Packaged: 2018-08-30 01:02:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8512750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: No matter how many deaths that I die, I will never forget.Night falls with gravity, the earth turns from sanity. Taking my only friend I know. He leaves me a lot, his name is ¨hope.¨





	1. Chapter 1

The streets were whispering in the glow of the midmorning sun. The only sound to be heard was the talk of the breeze that gusted across the sides of skyscrapers. Hushed groans of metal as powerlines betrayed their woes to the clouds above from their lack of maintenance. Papers rustled in the abandoned streets, scraping their imaginary claws across the asphalt in a desperate attempt to stay anchored before giving up and surrendering to the wind.

Indeed, the streets were alive, if only with the calls of the dead.

A city solely populated by the living dead. They could be found everywhere: amongst overturned cars, vandalized stores and shops, homes, even in the schools. Their ghastly wails of agonized hunger was a warning to the few who managed to bypass the deadly infection, warding away all living things for miles around.

Some wore tattered regs, others looked as if they were freshly turned. Despite what they wore, they all had dead eyes that shone with eternal hunger and their bodies were littered with huge, gaping bite marks and wounds that resembled that of a corpse's.

And, amongst the wreckage, a pair of blue-grey eyes watched them all with a cool,calculating look. They dare not move, scarcely breathing, so as not to attract their ravenous attention. He waited until the coast was clear before carefully picking his way across the rubble and silently slipped into an old, abandoned shop.

Carefully, so as not to give away his location, he slipped the bags slung across his back and waist off and began filling them with: canned goods, non-perishable food, water, blankets, clothes, and anything else he could salvage from the wreckage. When both bags full, he replaced them on his back and waist before slipping through the streets, taking back roads, away from the ever-hungry undead and any other prying eyes that could be lurking nearby.

He got home just before night fall. It wasn't much, just an old warehouse, but it was home nonetheless.

The inside of the warehouse had been gutted before it was reinforced with steel and iron with multiple intricate alarms strung throughout the building. Windows were either barred-off or blocked with tungsten plated metal and nailed to the wall surrounding it. The back rooms, originally offices and staff rooms, were now used for storage and surveillance.

He carried the bags to storage and set them down before meticulously stacking them with their corresponding groups in the shelves.

After that was done, he set up the traps around the perimeter before settling down for any possible attacks or hungry swarm with his trusty bow and arrow laying across his lap. Just in case.


	2. Chapter 2

Early morning revealed a young boy in his late teens quietly disposing a rotting corpse into a ditch filled with frigid, murky water.

He'd woken up in the middle of the night to one of the perimeter alarms going off. He took his bow and quiver outside with him to see what had set it off. He found an undead on the very edge of the property, caught in the barbed wire trap directly next to the trap itself. Skillfully, he strung an arrow and shot it between the eyes before dragging it two miles out to the ditch.

Once that was done, he made his way back to his make-shift home to gather supplies for his next venture into town to look for people like him. People who had somehow survived the, quite literal, deadly virus that swept over the nation before spreading to cover the entire world's population.

No one knew what happened at first, people of various ages, races and gender suddenly fell ill, people dropped dead for no apparent reason before they all came back ¨alive.¨ Only...they didn't, not really anyway. Seconds after they were revived they turned on those around them. Those who were bitten came back as an undead-if there was anything left to reanimate at all.

Within three hours it became a national state of emergency and within thirty-six hours it was a worldwide epidemic. Yet, despite their efforts to combat the undead, it took a total of eight days before the undead tool over and any survivors fled or went into hiding to get away from the living hell the nation had become. That plan, however, had failed. The undead followed the few still livin, killing them off.

Remote places held few undead. Stragglers stayed in the cities when the others followed the living.

That's how he had survived, he had been sent to the hospital with a few cracked ribs and a broken wrist a few weeks before the outbreak. He had checked himself out as soon as his ribs had healed and had ditched school for the rest of the day.

If he had not left when he did he would have been shot a few days later when the military came in to ¨cleanse¨ the hospital of the undead. Had he gone to school, he would have been cornered, like the rest of the students, and had either been shot or eaten by the staff.

So, in the midst of all the chaos and street rioting, he'd simply escaped to his hide-out, the one place he'd always go to escape his problems and, sometimes, people too.

In the beginning, he had two friends and his little brother with him. Together, when there were not as many undead in the cities, they had started to fortify the old warehouse, claiming ot as their own. But then something happened and he ended up having to bury his friends and...put his little brother to ¨sleep.¨

But, unlike everyone else, he didn't hide or try and outrun the undead. Instead, he stayed in the warehouse where he buried his brother and his two closest friends. He stayed and scavenged for supplies anywhere he could find them and went in daily trips into the city in hopes of finding any survivors.

No one knows just how long the undead have walked the earth, only that they seem to slow down in the heat. That extreme temperatures accelerates the speed in which they decompose, slowing their already diminished speed. And that there seems to be no exact pattern in which they go about their existence. Some travel in pairs, while others walk alone. Some attack only during the night or in broad daylight, and others attack at random.

The most dangerous, however, are the abnormalities. These are the undead that, for whatever reason, are unlike the others. They can fun, smell and, in some cases, eat other undead. These undead are referred to as Absent Lives, or AL's. They tend to have retained more basic motor skills and primal instincts than the rest and are often seen in packs in anywhere between four and sixteen AL's at a time. At most, you can expect to see these undead in areas heavily populated by undead, such as cities and abandoned refugee camps.

All the more reason why he never left. He's never encountered an AL face-to-face, but he has seen one feeding off the decaying corpse of a dead fawn while its pack ate an undead in the middle of the city. That's the one of the main reason why he never stays in the city more than a few hours and never overnight.

You can't always outrun a pack of AL, but you can outsmart them because they will do anything for food, even turn on each other.

He may be the only survivor in his hometown, but he still holds out hope of finding more too.

If only he knew just how close he was to finding them...


	3. Chapter 3

It was a normal-ish day...well, as normal as life can be when you're surrounded by the walking dead. I had just stepped over the corpse of an undead that I'd just put down when I heard the creak of metal further down the street. I quickly raised my bow, zeroing-in on a rusted out car about a yard away and cautiously crept closer. My breathing became deep, silent, as a dangerous calm settled in the pit of my stomach.

I stopped three feet from the car, carefully edging around the side with my arrow at the ready. I quietly gripped the blanket covering the cab of the car and ripped it off.

¨Don't shoot! Please.¨ An old man pleads, one hand raised in surrender while the other shielded someone or something behind him.

I narrow my eyes at him and loosen my hold on the bow without actually lowering it and motioned for him to climb out of the car.

The old man slowly got up with his hand up in a defenseless manor. But, as I've learned from my own experiences, looks can be deceiving. He stepped down out of the wreckage and onto the street and I could finally see what had been hidden behind him. Or, rather, whom he had been protecting. A young girl, about my age, with greasy blonde hair and mossy green eyes stood just beyond reach from the old man.

Clutching to her tattered dress was a younger girl, only about six or seven, with light brown hair and somber brown eyes, clutching a ragged old teddy bear.

Only then did I lower my bow. I was quiet for a moment before making a split-second decision. Sliding my arrow back into its quiver, I slung my bow over my shoulder and gestured for them to follow me. They hesitated before the faraway call of an undead had them scrambling to grab their stuff and stuck close to me all the way back to the warehouse.

Once inside, I locked the door and set up the traps before lighting a few candles and studied the strange group in front of me. The two girls were looking around in awe and the old man was watching me, keeping a close eye on my bow as I set it down by my pack.

I had yet to say anything choosing, instead, to give them a place to sleep, some clothes to change into and some rations of food before heading to my ¨room¨ to watch for any intruders or any possible attacks while the others got settled in for the night under the watchful eye of the old man.


	4. Chapter 4

As the night wore on into the early morning hours, I grew cold in my perch in the rafters, watching for any disturbances. I sat down in front of the fire across from the old man. Lying on either side of him the two girls were sleeping peacefully, wrapped up in old quilts patched up in multiple colored cloth from the wear and tear and age.

I watched as the old man gently stroked the girl's hair as they slept.

¨I've watched over these two for over a year now, been raising them like my own.¨ The old man said finally, breaking the heavy silence. He looked up at me with a critical eyes, analyzing me. ¨You've got the look of someone who's suffered more than they should have...and I'm sorry for that. I'm sorry a kid as young as you had to go through all that. I'm sorry a kid as young as you had to go through all you have. That you had to go through this mess by yourself.¨

I looked away from his intense gaze, staring into the fire as I poked at the burning cinder with a long stick.

¨I'm glad you found us.¨ He said, surprising me. I looked up as he continued. ¨If you hadn't have found us when you did...I don't know what would have happened to us.¨

¨....I'm glad I found you too.¨ I say quietly, ¨I was about to give up hope of finding any survivors at all.¨

He cast me an unreadable look before smiling. ¨Name's Phillip. This is my granddaughter, Amelia,¨ he says, pointing to the older blonde. ¨And this,¨ he points to the little girl tucked into his side, ¨is Cassidy. She's been Amelia's friend since before she could walk¨ he says fondly.

I shake his hand. ¨James L. Stone.¨

¨Well, James, I'll follow your leadership so long as you look after my two girls if something happens to me.¨

I give him a sad smile. ¨I will, I promise.¨


End file.
